1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transplanting machine using a seedling pot arrangement in which the seedlings of crops are raised for transplantations in a raising container having separatably adhered paper pots.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are a variety of transplantations, of which the transplantation using paper-potted seedlings are accepted as promising. In this method using the paper pots, a raising container having a number of paper pots arranged regularly and adhered separatably is used. This container is packed with soil and sowed with seeds for raising the seedlings. Individual potted seedlings are separated for transplantations from the pot arrangement. This technique is expected for a variety of crops partly because the transplantations can hold the soil without fail and partly because the paper pots being developed will decompose for a short time period after the transplantations.
On the other hand, the transplanting machine desired for the potted seedlings is of the natural drop type because of its high speed. In the prior art, more specifically, it has been confirmed that the yield is not seriously influenced by more or less fluctuations in the root intervals and disturbances of the planted positions. Since a drastically high yield is expectable from the transplantations using the potted seedlings, the accuracies in the root intervals and the planted positions having been required for the transplanting machine of the prior art can now be secondary to adopt the natural drop plantations. If the potted seedlings are used, on the other hand, the packing soil is far heavier than the stems and blades of the seedlings so that the potted seedlings are feasible to drop an to be positioned. Moreover, the potted seedlings can be easily separated from the pot arrangement so that they are suitable for the high-speed separations.
Incidentally, in the transplanting machine for separating and dropping one potted seedling from the pot arrangement, when a certain potted seedling is to be separated, the others adjoining that seedling may possibly be separated to drop together. Accordingly, there has been adopted a structure for feeding the seedling pot arrangement to the separator while pushing its front face to a regulator. According to this structure, both the potted seedlings positioned at both sides of the seedling being separated will not be separated. In case, however, the seedling pot arrangement has no displacement in the longitudinal and transverse directions, the potted seedlings adjacent to the rear side of the seedling being separated may possibly be separated together.